Nobody wants to be disliked. And as much as unscrupulous tenacity may be revered in the business world, the necessity of others’ esteem remains monumental. Especially if those people are your business partners, or, say your branding firm.
I’ll pause as you come to terms with the shocking revelation that you need to get the people you work with to like you.
Now it’s a matter of how to do it. You could covertly thumb through your dog-eared copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People and start a secret Twitter asking why everyone hates you. But that seems like a very specific and odd response, so maybe just put One Direction’s Perfect on repeat and take it from me (and the various digital marketers I surveyed).
You can be the perfect client. And I’ll tell you how. (Camera zooms past my unironic thumbs-up to my unflinching, pasted smile.)
There’s no compendious way to win every individual’s heart (you’re no Harry Styles), so it’s best to tackle this one department at a time: here are the number one ways to respectively win over your creative team, digital team, content strategists, and advertising team. Bring it in.
HOW TO BE THE PERFECT CLIENT TO
Your Creative Team: Communicate your brand well.
The number one way to reach the threshold of perfection with your creative team is to know your brand and be able to tell its story. Be able to speak articulately, even eloquently on the brand, with as much detail as possible–how do you want it to look, what do you want it to convey, who are you trying to reach? And once you make that first speech, keep the lines of communication open–a communicative client is a helpful one.
HOW TO BE THE PERFECT CLIENT TO
Your Digital Team: Trust their expertise.
Nothing is more impossible for a digital team than having to repeatedly sell themselves to you on top of doing their job. Realize why you hired this team and bask in that security. Know your goals and then accept that these are the experts who know how to attain them–that’s their job. If half of their effort is spent explaining each step to you–or worse, fighting you on the best practices–that’s less time spent moving towards those goals. If you want someone to simply take your (not necessarily learned) orders, you’re overpaying. If you want someone to take your brand to the next level, let them work.
HOW TO BE THE PERFECT CLIENT TO
Your Content Strategists: Calm down.
Social media is polarizing and it’s volatile–trends only happen when people have opinions to voice. Realizing that–paired with the knowledge that good business means taking risks–will help you get along with your content strategists. Some people are going to get pissed off–probably because they were already pissed off and they just want someone at which to yell. That actually means you’re doing it right–unless you’re only doing things for the sole purpose of pissing people off. If someone isn’t angry, you’re boring.
HOW TO BE THE PERFECT CLIENT TO
Your Advertising Team: Be Adaptable.
In advertising–particularly digital advertising–the goal is not perfection, but the movement towards it. Grant your team the power to experiment, the agility to be inventive–and it will pay off. Forcing them into rigid–and potentially archaic–practices won’t help the business and won’t help the team. They’ll move on to clients that allow them to do the innovative work with which they want to be associated. Be willing to improve and we’ll help you do that.
And while it’s important to know what is paramount to each department, you also need to remember the top request from all departments…
HOW TO BE THE PERFECT CLIENT TO
Your Branding Firm: Respect boundaries.
There are enumerable differences between an in-house team and a branding firm. The most palpable is the oft-referenced “scope.” If you are constantly changing the projects, adding multiple ad-hoc items–it affects the planning process and it affects the results. Respect the boundaries that were set up and give them time to flourish before reevaluating and redefining. The perfect client knows what is achievable within the budget, acknowledges it, and accepts the importance of continuing efforts that are working.
So there you have it. Remember: what makes you beautiful is how you treat your branding firm. Let’s not keep making all the same mistakes, or it will drag us down. Alright, I think that’s the requisite amount of One Direction puns to warrant these gifs.
For more questionably relevant content that honestly has nothing to do with Harry Styles (but I’ll work on it), follow me on Twitter and Snapchat @jenaprats.
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